


The Adventures of Hikaru Sulu

by obscuresymbolism



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25169272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obscuresymbolism/pseuds/obscuresymbolism
Summary: Little Demora can't sleep, so Ben tells her a story about the adventures Hikaru goes on while he is away on the Enterprise.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	The Adventures of Hikaru Sulu

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to have Demora call Hikaru "Ru" because I find it amusing to think she made the sound by coincidence, and Hikaru claimed it in order for himself to be her "first word" (instead of letting Ben get to be her "first word" with "dada"). 
> 
> I also don't know anything about children and developmental stages, so if anything doesn't make sense just mix it up in your mind until it does.
> 
> I wrote this directly after the last film came out, and just now decided to post! My first ever finished fic :)

“Daddy?” Demora’s small voice drifted into Ben’s dark bedroom. He rolled over and tapped the lamp on his bedside table, and a warm yellow glow gradually filled the room. Demora stood in the doorway, clutching her plush starship in her small hands. Hikaru had told her it was a tiny _Enterprise_ , and even stitched “NCC – 1701” into the side before he gave it to her, just a few days before the real _Enterprise_ set out on its mission.

“What is it, sweetheart?” 

“I can’t sleep,” she said. Ben looked at the clock and sighed. It was two in the morning. He had just fallen asleep himself. Not only was he struggling with his latest book (a collection of poetry that he had started and stopped writing over the last three years), but he was also missing, and a little worried about, his husband. 

“Come over here,” he said patting the empty side of their queen bed. Demora rushed across the room and plunged under the sheets. “Why can’t you sleep?”

At first, she didn’t answer. She cuddled closer to her father and frowned at her stuffed Enterprise. Ben waited, knowing she would eventually tell him what was wrong. Finally, she whispered, “When is Ru coming back?”

Ben wasn’t sure what the right answer would be. He truthfully didn’t know if his husband would ever come back—anything could happen in deep space—but he certainly couldn’t tell Demora that. He didn’t want to lie either, and tell her Hikaru would be home soon. The Enterprise hadn’t scheduled a return stop at Yorktown when it left six months ago. Before they were out of hailing distance, Hikaru had called to say it might be a whole year before the Enterprise was back in this part of the galaxy. Ben also knew that it would be unfair not to answer her question.

“Well,” he said, “he might not be back for a very long time.” Demora sniffed a little and pet her Enterprise. “Are you worried about him?”

Demora nodded. Ben held her close and gave her a little squeeze. 

“What are you worried about?”

“What if he gets lost in all those stars? What if he can’t find the way back?” Her uncertain voice shook ever so slightly. Ben knew she was trying not to cry, and it hurt his heart. She looked up at him, blinking away tears. “What if he gets stuck on a planet and has to live there forever and he never comes home?”

“You don’t have to worry about him getting lost. Did you know that the Enterprise has the best navigation systems out of all the starships?” Demora shook her head. “And did you know Ru is one of the best at flying starships in all of Starfleet?”

“Really?” Demora asked. 

“Really,” Ben smiled. “And I know he’s not going to get stuck on a planet. You know why? Because Ru is smart and he loves us very much. He will do everything he can to come back to us.” 

They sat in silence for some time, Demora’s small head resting on Ben’s chest. He stroked her long black hair and she occasionally sniffled, still twisting the saucer of the Enterprise in her small hands.

Six months had been a long time. Ben missed Hikaru constantly, like a small ache in his chest that never quite went away. Demora was probably so upset tonight because she had heard the news broadcast that Ben had been listening to that morning, about a Starfleet vessel which had been stranded in uncharted space six years ago that had just been rediscovered. He did his best to keep the more troubling news stories out of her young ears, but it was always hard. Demora had a habit of sneaking into a room, and often revealed her presence after hearing a particularly distressing sound byte. 

_Then again_ , Ben thought, _her birthday’s coming up. She probably thought Hikaru would be here…_

Hikaru was terrible when it came to birthdays. He almost always forgot, and on the off chance he did remember, even his best-laid plans fell through. Once, when they had first started dating, Hikaru had forgotten Ben’s birthday and to try to make up for it by planning a spectacular weekend on Mars for the two of them. He had four days of shore leave but, right as they were set to leave, the ventilation system failed and the colony had to be evacuated. It wasn’t repaired before Hikaru’s shore leave ended. It was actually a fond memory, looking back. They had stayed at Ben’s apartment and spent the weekend trying to find the best old-fashioned pizza place in town by sampling all of them.

Of course, Hikaru had missed all of Demora’s birthdays for some reason or another. Ben and Hikaru adopted her less than a year into their marriage. It was on her fourth birthday that Hikaru left for the five-year mission he was currently on. She would be turning six in a matter of days. 

Ben placed a gentle kiss on the top of Demora’s head. Without looking up at him, she said, “Do you know what he’s doing right now?”

“Right now? Probably sleeping. Like you should be.” Demora didn’t respond. “Do you want to hear a story?” he asked. 

She nodded and sniffed again as they both settled in for Ben’s story. 

“The other day, someone told me about a really big, really fast starship that only one person could fly. He flew it so well that everybody asked him to fly their starships, but he never left his own. He was a Starfleet officer and loved the crew and the ship he was with. For every boring day on board, there would be an equally exciting day in the future. That helmsman – that’s what they call the people who fly the starships – loved adventure, but he also had a daughter at home, who also wanted to go on adventures. But she could not come with him, because she was not yet trained as a Starfleet officer, and she still had to go to school in the morning.”

"Is the helms man Ru?" Demora asked. 

Ben smiled and hugged her closer. "I guess you'll have to listen and find out," he teased.

Demora sniffled again and closer her eyes, but Ben knew he had her attention. He continued, “Every time he got to fly the starship to a new world, he would beam down and try to find a present for his little girl. 

“One day, the captain of the starship said to the helmsman, ‘Let’s see how fast this ship can go,’” Ben said, doing his best impression of Captain Kirk based on the few times they had met (and based on those meetings, he had no doubt that Kirk gave that particular command at least once). “‘Lieutenant, take us out of orbit.’ The helmsman, who was the lieutenant, turned the ship around and flew it straight out into space.

“They flew and flew and the ship got all the way to warp nine before the Captain gave a sudden command to stop. As the ship slowed down, they noticed a small planet ahead of them, one that wasn’t even on the charts yet. The crew scanned the planet and found that there were no life forms on the surface. There was only plant-matter and rocks and enough oxygen that humans could survive. 

“Now, the crew had been on routine missions for weeks. Everyone, especially the Lieutenant, was getting a little bored. The Captain thought to himself, ‘This might be a good place for shore leave.’ He left the bridge and took his first officer, a security officer, and the Lieutenant with him. Together, the four went down to the surface of the planet. 

“They beamed into a clearing between tall trees with purple trunks and orange flowers on the branches. Nobody had ever seen trees like this in the entire galaxy. They were so tall that the tops disappeared into the blue sky, which was nearly filled up on one side by the planet’s moon. Under their feet was soft, green grass dotted here and there with pink and blue flowers. Just in the distance, the Lieutenant could see that the trees were gradually replaced with tall, yellow reeds leading to a rocky hill. 

“‘Everybody, split up,’ the Captain said. ‘We can cover more ground that way and get better readings.’ The first officer turned back and started off deeper into the unusual woods. The Captain turned right and followed the sound of running water, followed by the security officer. The Lieutenant decided to go straight and investigate the rocky hills. 

“As he neared the hills, the Lieutenant heard a strange noise that sounded like a choir of tiny birds. He pulled out his tricorder and scanned the area, but it was no use. All of the readings said there was nothing in the woods but himself, the Captain and security officer, and the First Officer. But the birdsong didn’t stop. It grew louder and louder the closer the Lieutenant got to the reeds, and peaked almost in sync with his footsteps. 

“Frustrated by the noise, the Lieutenant stopped to think. He sat down on a fallen tree, and suddenly the music stopped. The Lieutenant leapt up he was so surprised. As soon as his feet hit the ground, the singing started again. He picked up one foot, and the singing faded slightly. When he put his foot back down, the singing resumed at its full volume. The Lieutenant bent down and examined the patch of blue flowers in which he was standing more closely. When he put his ear to the ground, the singing grew even louder. The little flowers themselves were the source of the noise.

“The Lieutenant could hardly believe it, but he noticed as he kept walking to the rocky hills that if he stepped on the grass instead of in the patches of flowers, the singing would fade and eventually stop. He recorded all of this information with his tricorder, and then decided to pick some to bring back to his daughter. After all, who had heard of singing flowers before? He was sure she would be delighted by them. But each flower the Lieutenant picked let out a high-pitched squeal and shriveled up. There would be no use taking back shriveled flowers that didn’t sing, so he left the flowers and passed from the purple woods into the golden reeds.

“The planet’s sun shined down and made the reeds glitter and sparkle as if they were really made of gold. The Lieutenant went to pluck a leaf off of the reeds, but as he did so, a fine golden dust rubbed off onto his fingers, leaving the plant a dull yellow color. A breeze blew past and stirred up a cloud of the gold dust, coating the Lieutenant’s boots and making him sneeze. As much as he wanted to bring the gold dust home for his daughter to see, he knew that pollen and spores were dangerous to transfer between planets, so he made a mental note to wash his hands, and then continued further into the reeds. 

“When he was well into the middle of the reeds, the giant forest receding in the distance and the rocky hills getting closer with each step, the Lieutenant heard a noise behind him. He turned to face the sparkling sea of grass, but could see nothing. A quick glance to his tricorder told him that the Captain, who was closest, was still about two miles away. The Lieutenant decided he had just heard the wind blowing through the reeds, and turned back toward the hills. But the sound followed him—it reminded him of someone shuffling through a pile of dead leaves. 

“‘Hello?’ he called. ‘Is someone there?’ The shuffling stopped and the Lieutenant listened carefully. A small whisper that sounded like the wind blowing through tree branches back on Earth drifted out from behind a large tuft of reeds. The Lieutenant called again, since there was no breeze on the planet at that time. He heard a shuffling and the rustling whisper again—he was sure this time that someone, or something, was in the reeds. 

“The Lieutenant pulled out his phaser and set it to stun, hoping that whatever was on the other side of the reeds was friendly. He crept around the tuft, his heart pounding, and wondered if he should call the Captain, or the First Officer. The Lieutenant took a deep breath and jumped around the tuft of golden reeds, and found nothing. All that was behind the reeds was more of the gold dust, but he noticed it had been stirred up, as if someone had walked through it. 

“Then, the Lieutenant heard from back on the other side of the tuft of reeds the unmistakable sound of giggling. There was an alien there, and he knew he had to call the Captain. Just as he was about to calibrate his communicator, the reeds swayed and parted, and the alien stepped forward.

“It was unlike any creature he had ever seen before. It was no more than a meter high, with six long, wobbly limbs that sort of flopped back and forth without much control on the alien’s part. It moved by hopping on one thick, sinewy leg and felt around with its knotted tendrils. Its lily-shaped head grew out at an oddly protruding angle from its neck and swayed back and forth without stopping. The alien had three green eyes on its face, and several slits under them that the Lieutenant assumed comprised its mouth. The slits rippled slightly as the creature continued to giggle and whisper. 

“Thinking that there was nothing else to be done, the Lieutenant introduced himself to the creature with his name and rank. ‘I’m with the United Federation of Planets,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you know this language?’” 

Ben stopped and looked down at Demora who was now sound asleep. She had curled up at his side, hugging her Enterprise plush close. He felt just a twinge of disappointment that his story had to go unfinished. He had planned out a spectacular way to have his thinly veiled Hikaru befriend the aliens, save the captain from some imagined peril, and still make it home in time to tuck his daughter into bed. 

Demora sighed in her sleep and Ben pulled the duvet over both of them. As he tapped the light out, he decided to finish the story tomorrow night, if Demora asked. She always asked, and he always had a story ready.


End file.
